This invention relates to a system for conveying bottle groupings to prevent the bottles from tipping over as they are conveyed from a grouping station to a packaging station. The bottles are arranged in groups at the grouping station with the bottles lying at least transversely adjacent one another relative to the conveying direction. At the packaging station the bottles are packaged utilizing packaging material such as foldable carton blanks which are folded into trays, or flat carton blanks.
The bottles have neck flanges or collars located beneath the bottle closures, and the conveying system includes a conveyor frame having guide means extending in the conveying direction provided for engaging the bottles beneath their neck flanges during the conveying process to prevent the bottles from tipping over.
When packaging mass products, especially in the food and beverage industry, ever higher requirements are set for the packaging machinery with regard to speed and reliability. Known automated equipment is utilized for packaging the products, such as cans or bottles, into groups, into cartons, tray packaging, or only in plastic wrap. Typical machine rates currently operate in the range of 100 packages per minute. Each disruption of the process means machine failure and thus a significant loss of production.
A disruption of operations of this type occurs often during the product packaging operation. For articles to be packaged wherein the height of the articles is significantly greater than the width and length thereof such that the articles have a high center of gravity, it is highly likely that when accelerating or slowing the conveying machine or when transferring from one transport conveyor to the other, one or more of these articles could fall over, which generally starts a chain reaction. Consequently, the machine must be stopped and the articles again uprighted with effort and time delay, and the machine restarted.
A conveying machine of the type to which the invention pertains is disclosed in German published application No. 42 07 725, in which bottles are conveyed from a grouping station to a packaging station over a conveyor, whereby the bottles are prevented from falling over by the provision of movable support rods located ahead of and behind a row of bottles arranged cross-wise to one another, to thereby prevent the bottles from falling over during the conveying operation in cooperation with rails guiding the necks of the bottles. The support rods remain in position until the group of bottles is encased in a foil, whereby the rods are first wrapped together with the bottles. The rods are then withdrawn laterally from the encasing and are moved back along the conveying direction to the grouping station. With such a known system, however, it is only possible to package the groups of bottles in a foil wrapping, while tray packaging is not possible using this known system. Moreover, this prior art system is most suited for conveying and packaging groups of bottles which typically comprise a row of bottles arranged adjacent one another in a lateral direction relative to the conveying direction.